I love the “moonshot” ideology, a type of thinking that aims to achieve something that is generally believed to be impossible.  I first came across this concept with Google X and their way of thinking about hard problems. Who wouldn’t get inspired by solving a massive challenge using next generation technology? Especially when it’s backed with enough money to see if it will actually work. Of all the projects, I love Loon the most – connectivity by high altitude balloons that use wind patterns intelligently.  It’s just that right mix of insanity and brilliance that epitomizes solving a massive problem by trying something incredibly lateral.

Like many others, I too am driven to use my time on this earth to solve big problems. My mixture of background and experience ideally suits me to do technology work in Africa, and my personality means I end up building new things, new companies, instead of working for others. By the nature of those three things (entrepreneurship + tech + Africa), I tend to be resource constrained when it comes to moonshots. Instead, along with great partners and co-founders, I’ve built organizations that utilize crowd sourcing, foster innovation grounded in the African context, provide funds to tech startups, and create space to collaboratively build and rapidly prototype new technology.

My most recent endeavor has been building BRCK, which is 6 years old, trying to solve for how to create a real onramp to the internet for people who can’t pay for it.

Moonshots and Groundshots

As I look at this odd mixture of companies, I realize that, while I’m a moonshot thinker, I’m a groundshot operator.  I’m trying to solve big problems that impact many people across the world using the last generation’s technology in different ways, and coming up with a new pattern or model for everyone to benefit. In short, I don’t have the resources to build a Loon or StarLink, but what I can do is figure out how to make something that meets ordinary people where they are with what they have, and not just for profit, but also to make the world a slightly better place.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as we’re dealing with the current coronavirus pandemic. Google’s Loon was first-level approved to work in Kenya last year, and then just this week was given a final green light by the Kenyan government to operate. This is great news, and I’m excited that we have four of their balloons sitting over Kenya right now. I’m also concerned that it’s only going to solve part of the problem.

You see, connectivity is a mixture of signal and devices, AND affordability. Loon solves for the difficulty of signal in rural Africa, where building mobile phone towers has too low of an ROI for the mobile operators to be interested. Devices are getting cheap enough that we’re seeing a deep density of (low-end) smartphones across many countries. However, affordability is a BIG hairy problem, made only bigger as the economic hits start coming during and after this pandemic.

Loon uses the LTE spectrum of Kenya’s Telkom operator, so anyone who has the Telkom SIM card can receive that signal from the balloon and be connected. The problem is that you have to pay the data rates that Telkom charges, which isn’t much by middle-class standards, but most rural people aren’t middle class and their wallets are much more rigid.

That’s the problem we started working to solve in a little room beneath the iHub back in 2014. “How do you get everyone in Africa online if they can’t pay?”

The answer was a bit humbling for us techies to swallow, but it turned out that the business model was as important as the technology – maybe more so. We started grinding on this problem, which culminated in our Moja platform, now operating in Kenya and Rwanda. So far, it has brought 2 million users online for free. The answer was found in us saying, “What if the internet becomes free for consumers everywhere? The internet isn’t free to deliver, so what is the business model for that?” The mental model we were left with meant we had to find other parties to pay, which led us down the B-to-B-to-C model that we currently use and are finding quite successful.

So… What is a Groundshot Then?

I think it’s the glue that connects the amazing wizardry of the moonshot with the grounded business models and older technology found in most people’s pockets.

We’re rapidly expanding our Moja network, and I’m glad to work with our backhaul partners in terrestrial fibre internet and mobile operators. But I’m equally excited to take these moonshots like Loon or StarLink and connect them to real people on the ground in Africa. With a ground game like ours, and air support like theirs, it’s a magical combination.

It has been 18 days since we left Nairobi for South Africa, then returned to Kenya. In that time, we passed through 8 countries, 18 border posts, covered 9,000 kilometers and saw some of Africa’s amazing beauty and realized just how vast of a continent we live and work on.

Sunrise riding is beautiful

A BRCK Expedition is meant to be challenging, as well as provide a testing environment for the device, and of course to have fun as well – this was all of those things.

Philip fixes his broken throttle cable roadside, early morning in Tanzania

Our path to SA and back to KE

Through the BRCK, and partners like Inmarsat (with their iSavi device), we were able to stay connected on the road to the internet. We learned about the hassles of SIM buying, registering, activating, buying airtime and converting that to internet data in each country. On the motorcycles we stayed in conversation using Sena headsets, which meant we could warn each other of dangers, as well as have conversations on future products and features (of which there are many). Around campfires in the night we discussed our current challenges and ways we could make things better.

Inmarsat iSavi, BRCK, computer and solar panels

The team back home, as well as our families, tracked our progress and helped us remotely out of some problems. Whether that was trying to get the information on the gap needed on a 1983 BMW R65 spark plug, or finding a place for us to camp in the next couple hours when things got a bit dicey. Having the ability to communicate and people who anchor the expedition team were amazing luxuries to have.

We used a couple channels for public updates, including the BRCK Twitter and Instagram accounts, Open Explorer as our geographic diary of sorts, and of course the BRCK blog. However, on the trip north we also had a cool gift from the Inmarsat team of a satellite tracker for the vehicle.

The route back north to Kenya

A Few of the Best and Worst Experiences:

[BEST] Makuzi Beach Malawi – a beautiful, unexpected, and much welcomed oasis. We did amazingly well on our 500km that morning, so were there by lunch and had a whole afternoon to rest, fix things and have some fun before continuing.

Paul drives the underwater OpenROV

Matt catches this amazing sunrise in Lake Malawi

[BEST] Hospitality of Tech Communities in Africa – It was amazing to roll into Lusaka, Zambia and be welcomed by the BongoHive and find the same in Harare, Zimbabwe from HyperCube and the tech community there. Finding like-minded individuals who were wonderful hosts was just what we needed.

At HyperCube in Harare, Zimbabwe

[BEST] BRCK Working Everywhere – Having someone in the vehicle working to get the BRCK going with a new SIM in a new country, as it was attached to an amp and vehicular mounted antenna, meant that we could stay connected (almost always). Rolling up on the vehicle and watching my phone sync up with messages and updates was cool, even in traffic. Mostly, it was gratifying to see the tech we had built withstand the harshness of travel and terrain, and just work.

Kurt readies a BRCK with the Wilson signal booster

[WORST] Border Crossings – It’s a toss-up whether the Tunduma Border crossing from Tanzania into Zambia is worse than the Beit Bridge border crossing from South Africa into Zimbabwe. The first is a chaotic mess, and the second is a process nightmare. (Note: Crack-of-dawn is the best time to do both crossings)

Beit Bridge border process into Zimbabwe

[WORST] Speed bumps and Police in Tanzania – The speedbumps in every town slow you down, plus the number of police waiting to stop any vehicle. The worst are the ones with radar guns, as their only mission is revenue generation. It seems that all Tanzanian police are unsubtly looking for bribes all of the time.

A police officer in Tanzania not asking for a bribe

[WORST] SIM card frustrations in new countries – Kurt wrote about this in a past post, so won’t belabor it, but it was extremely annoying to have to figure out the obscure and opaque mysteries of getting a SIM card connecting to the internet in each country. One of my personal goals is to make this easier for other travelers in the future.

Before we left Nairobi, 2 weeks ago, I though that a 500km day on a motorcycle was a long time. Now I just ask, “well, what will we do in the afternoon then?”

BRCK truck top

Our setup of BRCK plus Amp plus Car antenna

We left Harare, where the Arensen’s had hosted us for two nights in their lovely home, for a bit of a long day. We were gambling that we could make it through the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border AND then the Mozambique-Malawi border in good enough time to get to a campsite by the end of the day. A quick breakfast of chai, coffee and pre-boiled eggs underneath a baobab tree saw us to the first border in good time.

The Douane border crossing is less busy than it’s Beit Bridge counterpart. Leaving Zimbabwe, the customs and immigration officials are efficient and helpful. Getting into Mozambique was equally problem-free, especially since we had all gone to get our visas already.

A rickety wooden bridge in Malawi

Philip, solving problems in Kenya, while on the road in Malawi

Kurt with Lobo in the vehicle

My Suzuki DR650

Now, Mozambique, this part of it anyway where you shoot across the Tete corridor towards Malawi, is a hot, dry and barren land. The only thing of any note is the nice bridge you cross over the Limpopo river passing through the city of Tete. Besides that, I’d suggest it’s not a place you want to spend any time.

Two interesting things happen as you run to the Malawi border. First, you realize that you cross back and forth between the two countries a couple times on the way. Second, when you pass through the Mozambique side of the border you’re still 5km from the Malawi border crossing. Strange… but, again border crossings are not about security, they’re about revenue generation.

The Mozambique customs officials had clearly never seen a Carnet de Passage (it’s like a passport for your vehicle), so they acted like it was something they couldn’t stamp. We were able to convince them that it was something normal, and that their colleague at the previous border had stamped it, so they could as well. Stamped and moving, we shot off for the campground, as we saw a storm rolling in.

It was at this time that our small team mascot, Lobo the Australian cattle dog puppy, decided to have an explosive experience inside of the vehicle. Many curses were heard as people sprayed themselves down, and cleaned out the dog’s carrier. Praying for a dry night, we took off a bit behind schedule, and still managed to roll into Bushman’s Baobabs (great place), and had a warm still night of sleep.

500km up Lake Malawi

Off early, as always, we were half-way to our destination by 9:30am and got to camp by just after noon. As an aside, I think the word “Malawi”, and the flag symbol, all are pointed at the meaning of “land of the bicycle”. We saw so many people on bicycles today, more than in any other country we’ve been to.

The bicycles of Malawi

Makuzi Beach area of Lake Malawi is beautiful, and having a full afternoon ahead of us was something we didn’t know quite what to do with. So, of course we broke out the drone and OpenROV to have some fun.

We got some shots.

The OpenROV set to try Lake Malawi

Philip getting ready with the drone

Lobo checking out a shell

Matt Schoenhold of Teague playing with the OpenROV

Philip managed to crash the drone into the lake, so we’re trying to see if we can resurrect it. (Update: we dried it out all night and now it’s working again. DJI makes an amazingly hardy device)

We had a grand idea of Paul driving the OpenROV underwater vehicle under a rock and taking a video of someone jumping into the water. We kind of did that, the problem was the cable was a bit short. The other problem was that it cut my toe with a blade as it came up directly underneath me. The good thing is that we had a lot of fun trying and leaned some of the limits of the vehicle.

There is now a beautiful, slow moonrise happening at 9pm, over Lake Malawi. We’re all well, fat and happy. The bikes and Land Rover have been behaving well. We’re set for our early AM departure as we have 750 kilometers and a border crossing to go through.

Since I was a child I have heard stories regaled of South Africa. The modernity. The beauty. The ethnic diversity. Even though I remember seeing signs growing up in West Africa that said “Apartheid a bas!” ( English: down with Apartheid), I have always had a positive and idealized view of this great stalwart of the African continent. From my naive perspective, it was what the rest of us should aspire to realize in our own corners of the continent. I visited SA for the first time in the early 2000’s. It definitely had some African feel to it, however, the fear in those days was palpable. Entering a business was an ordeal of security checks. The malls had the same scanning equipment as an airport. Yet, in the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg, there was an amazing sense of tranquility, beauty, and progress. It was easy to do business with South Africans and their sense of optimism for their country – and the continent – was overwhelming.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and I find myself sitting in an altogether different country. While the roads are just as spectacular crime is still a problem – although the sense of fear is clearly diminished. Everything about this country screams modernity and progress. But the veneer is thin. What lies beneath the glossy shell is insidious, corrupt, and diseased. And it is getting worse.

In the few days that we spent in South Africa, we personally felt the pinch of the widespread power shedding that is going on due to insufficient, aging, and poorly maintained power infrastructure. We lost an entire day from our schedule because the Land Rover shop we were using removed the tyres from the wheels and subsequently were cut off from power and unable to remount them. As I spoke with the proprietor he shared that another customer had their vehicle completed but the shop could not raise the lift enough to release the locks that would allow the vehicle to be lowered. This is South Africa! A “european” country at the base of Africa. How could these kind of infrastructure issues be happening here? As I continued my dialog the old man told me that he was even considering buying a generator to keep up productivity. That would have been my first thought – given that our office and my house already have generators – but in this part of Africa that notion is foreign and frightening.

This lack of realistic perspective on the rest of the continent came up during our discussion with another South African technologist who is focused on the education sector. The problems that he has been dealing with are related to choosing HP over Cisco routing equipment for the schools where he works. Although I’m sure that is important in his context, these things mean nothing where we live. To his credit, this guy is traveling around southern Africa with his family and exploring the challenges that exist for education outside of South Africa. He understands the problem enough to have been very excited about BRCK. I sense that he is willing learn to adapt his thinking and will ultimately be very effective at solving the real problems that exist north of the Tropic of Capricorn.

While there are plenty of subtle (and often not so subtle) clues that this southern civilization is crumbling from the inside out, there is hope. And not just a hope for survival but a hope for a rising tide extending well beyond the smooth roads and superhighways.

During our time in Jozi we relied heavily on Uber for our transportation. I had never used this service and I was blown away by the convenience and reliability. During each ride I would query the driver with the same questions on how they liked driving for Uber, how they were doing economically, and their plan forward. What I found was a bunch of very hard working, polite, and intelligent entrepreneurs at various stages of the business lifecycle. Some were driving for the owner of the car and saving their money to buy their own car. One had just bought his first car. You could see the pride and optimism of this older gentleman as we shifted through Joburg in his new Toyota Corolla. This man had gone from being an employee of a metered taxi service to a driver of someone else’s Uber car to now being an entrepreneur in his own right. An inspiring story. The final driver that I used was driving a C-class Mercedes. He now owned a couple of cars and was working to manage a handful of drivers. He was driving that day because his previous driver had gotten into an accident and damaged the car. He struggles to find good employees but he was excited about the new guy who starts on Monday.

I absolutely adore these examples of the disruption that technology brings to business and the resourceful application of hard work at the points of disruption to create new opportunities, businesses, and jobs. As African technologists (particularly as BRCK), this is our real potential to have an impact and build a sustainable and prosperous community.

On Friday, Erik and I had the chance to sit down with a South African who is the fund manager for a very wealthy German technologist. Marc has a very down to earth and insightful view to technology and business in Africa. He sees beyond the glossy shell and recognizes the challenges that underly his own country along with the potential for the rest of the continent. It was odd for Erik and I to talk with an investor who didn’t need to be sold on the potential and opportunity for BRCK in Africa. Instead we focused on our real issue which is scaling production and distribution to meet the untapped potential for BRCK. Marc figures that we could place an advert in Joburg and sell a few thousand BRCKs overnight to South Africans who are frustrated by the intermittent power and unreliable connectivity – sounds more like Naiorbi than Johannesburg. Because he has some experience in telecommunication equipment and infrastructure, Marc seemed particularly excited about the idea for Supa BRCK. A weatherproof BRCK with multiple ethernet and multiple cellular connections that could serve as a critical component in building reliable corporate networks for African schools, business, and governments. It was reassuring and encouraging to spend time with someone who knows the realities on the ground, sees past the veneer, and is still excited for the opportunity to build African technology to solve African problems.

My favorite experience of the trip was meeting Marcus Watson who runs a BMW motorcycle repair business. We were referred to Marcus to help sort out some issues on my bike and get it ready for the return trip. Even though as a sole proprietor his schedule is packed, Marcus gladly took in my bike to get it prepped for the hard road ahead. I immediately appreciated Marcus’ knowledge on these bikes and his attention to detail. He knows these machines, how much abuse they can take, and how to keep them running reliably across Africa. As he poked and prodded my bike I got to hear his story of being a first-rate engineer in the power industry, getting retrenched as South Africa struggled to balance racial distribution in the work place, and ultimately turning his hobby into a thriving business. Although Marcus is saddened to see how poorly the power infrastructure is being maintained today, he isn’t the kind of person who gets bitter and then sits down to complain. Instead he took his talents and commitment to customer service and built a business and reputation as a world class motorcycle mechanic. He didn’t flinch at the fact that my bike was a bit Kenyan in its mixed component heritage and adapted to the changes that Rick and I have made to make this bike suitable for this trip. What saddened me in my conversations with Marcus is that he is considering emigrating to Australia. I have no doubt that he would find a wonderful life there but I am disheartened to think that Africa will be losing such an amazing resource. I hope one day that guys like Marcus are willing to travel north and set their sights and talents on the challenges facing the rest of Africa.

In the end, I came away from our trip still a little glassy eyed about our cousins in the south. I don’t think that I could live there but I certainly don’t mind visiting. I also think that there is a real opportunity for Africans to come together in this time where Kenyans have insights into dealing with poor infrastructure and South Africans have insights into proper engineering. It would be a great benefit to both sides of the Limpopo River to work together to solve challenges and problems that exist in each others back yards. I truly hope that these present and future challenges in South Africa will force this society to unleash their best and brightest onto the rest of the continent.

We had a long 17 hour day on the road yesterday. We did this to compensate for over 10 hours lost fixing the Land Rover in Johannesburg. We started at 4:30 in the morning and stopped at around 10p.m. But that has become normal.  Covering over 820km a day is something we have stopped noticing too much. Something else was noticeable getting into Zimbabwe from South Africa. There was a surreal binary switch from Africa-lite to the real Africa.

Right from the border, after the South African side, you drive into this huge frenzy of hundreds if not thousands of people, busses, trucks and people offering to fix the border process for you so you clear in a few hours and not take the whole day. I understood why Beitbridge border in Zimbabwe is considered one of the worst crossings in the entire continent. One experienced traveller told me it took him 3 days to get through once.

After 3 hours of Erik’s quick thinking and some local help, we were lucky to go through. Once inside Zimbabwe, there was a surreal feeling on former optimism and progress. A restaurant that was once nicely done, now a shell of its former glory. A mall with half the shops in business, roads that must have once been beautiful to drive, but slowly withering from the edges in, making driving and riding on them quite dangerous, especially coming against wide load trucks in blinding full lights in the pitch black wilderness. We were back to real Africa.

We tried to get a local SIM in a mall and this too was a surreal experience. We have done this in every country to test the BRCK. Once a full mall now with only a handful of shops.  This on the other hand had formed the perfect breeding ground for hustlers. Local fixers who could get you anything you had come to buy from the mall. They have SIM cards, airtime, you name it.

The cell connectivity is the worst we have found so far. Even with a multi directional antenna, we could only connect sparingly across the journey, which was not surprising since along the road down, there was nothing. Long stretches of amazing scenic natural beauty but little signs of civilization.

One thought I had as we drove from village to village was how could access to information affect the situation in Zimbabwe? What if these school kids, vendors, villagers had access to the internet? How would that affect their situation? Their country? Thats fascinating thought.

Paul and I flew down to Johannesburg on Monday and spent some time helping prepare for when the team arrived.  We looked for mechanics shops for all the vehicles, I had some meetings and Paul prepared for Maker Faire.

Now we get to join the guys as we dash back up to Nairobi!  I have wanted to do such a trip since I was a high schooler in Nairobi and Paul has also had visions of taking a motor bike across Africa. So we were both very excited to have this opportunity.  And we still are… but today didn’t start off the way we would have chosen.

This Mark and I went to check on how the Land Rover was fairing.  The mechanic was already there, trying to get us on the road as early as possible.  Unfortunately it didn’t have an indicator console, a steering wheel, a passenger door panel, nor any wheels on when we arrived.  Johannesburg has been suffering from load shedding for a while now and we got to feel the pain yesterday.  Without electricity, the tire shop was unable to get the tires ready yesterday.  So while he went to get the tires Mark and I got to installing a GPS tracker that our friends at Inmarsat had generously loaned us.  It didn’t take to long to give it power and arrange the antennas, unfortunately the truck was inside the shop so the GPS was unable to connect.

By about 12:30 the truck had a brand new set of wheels, things were settled with the mechanic and we were on the road.  Unfortunately that lasted about 10 min.  Coming up to a stop light something started squeaking and 100m later the truck screeched to a halt; a wheel had seized up.  We were not able to call the mechanic so I quickly just jogged back to the shop, which luckily was less than a mile back.  The mechanic had to make a couple of trips back to the shop so in the mean time I figured, hey, I wonder if the GPS is working.  So on the side of the road I booted up my computer, got online (we are BRCK after all!) and sure enough, there we were sitting on Malibongwe Drive!  We are currently looking into feeding that data live to our other feeds so stay tuned!

It turns out the rear stub axle had seized.  We were able to let the affected wheel coast and drive back to the shop.  By 4:30 we had removed the bad axle, cannibalized a good one from another Defender 11o and were back on the road.

Meanwhile back at the guest house the guys had simply had to wait for us.  As soon as we rolled in the driveway they were tossing gear up on the roof rack and filling up the back.  And at 5:30, about 9 hours after our ideal departure time, we were on the road up to Zimbabwe.

Fortunately the roads in South Africa are amazing and the traffic very organized.  We made excellent time until 8pm.  Then we hit a weather system which included heavy rain and some incredible wind.  The bikers got soaked so we stopped around 9pm so they could change and we could get some food.  But the system passed us while we were stopped so we had to get through it again.  After running it twice the bikers were just frozen so we called it a day, found a hotel to get a decent nights sleep.

To make up for the lost time we need to be on the road again in about 4 hours!  But that’s OK, as always told my campers years ago, “It’s not an adventure if everything goes as planned!”

The BRCK and Gearbox tables at Maker Faire Africa in Johannesburg

We’ve been excited to show up at Maker Faire Africa (old site) in Johannesburg for quite a few months, so actually being there yesterday was a big deal for us. Especially as we had driven 4,400km to be here and it was our primary goal for the journey.

The BRCK table certainly drew our fair share of interest at Maker Faire Africa this year. While Maker Faires elsewhere often feature the likes of fire-breathing dragon statues and other impressive works of art, making in Africa has a slightly different tone. The Faire in Joburg had plenty of amazing artwork – not least of which was a 30-foot tall LED light sculpture made of CNC’ed plywood and steel that looked amazing as the sun went down – but it also featured a leveling device for brick layers to make high-quality masonry easier to achieve. There’s a strong enterprising spirit to many local makers, and lots of them were keen to learn BRCK’s story of starting a hardware company in Africa.

From questions about sourcing components, to finding access to tools, financing, and marketing expertise, makers from across the continent wanted to know BRCK’s story of taking a uniquely African innovation to commercializable product. We held a joint workshop with the Gearbox team on how to take a product design from idea to prototype to production, and showed lots of people how they could leverage their experience in the local market and knowledge of the local context to develop innovative new products that no one else in the world would be capable of making.

While this year’s MFA is a bit smaller than in years past, we were still in great company with people building drones, robots, DIY kids electronics kits, 3D printers and a guy who built his own art car and skinned it in denim. (The best coverage is found on HTXT.africa. There were these guys who had built a small remote-controlled hovercraft who kept sliding it around, as well as a whole space setup for people to 3D print and make their own things.

Prototyping to Manufacturing

MFA is a great event, if for no other reason than that it brings together the engineers and inventors in an area together. There’s a lot of learning and connections made, and then more things happen afterwards. The other thing that happens is that people who are inventing new things are found by media and business people who can help them.

Last year there wasn’t a Maker Faire Africa, so we at BRCK weren’t able to showcase our prototype-level devices. This year, we had one of the more polished items at the event.

There’s a lot that needs to happen between your first hacked together prototypes and a real production run of a new product. This is why I think providing an on-ramp to manufacturing is the obvious place to go next with Africa’s inventors. This is why we’re helping to build Gearbox in Nairobi. We need people, training and machines that can take guys with great ideas and early prototypes, and move them into becoming real businesses.

The foundation is a lot more hardware-based prototyping, whether that’s Fundibots in Uganda, MakerHut in Zambia is trying to foster a community around hardware, and there’s a lot of activity in robotics groups by engineering students in Kenya, South Africa, Egypt and Senegal much of it happening in their respective tech hubs.

[As an aside: read Bankole’s post on “Africa needs an Industrial Revolution“]

The next layer is what we need to plan for next. So, while we’re thinking of Gearbox in Kenya, there are others doing the same in South Africa (who has always had a great manufacturing base). What others are out there? Who else is creating a program, space and bringing together that city’s inventors and engineers to not just create prototypes, but take things to market?

Thanks goodness for BRCK. 

Unfortunately this will be my last expedition post this trip. I’ve had to leave the guys early to make a dash north to sort out some business. If it weren’t for BRCK I’d still be in Livingstone. When the news came that I had to come back to Nairobi, we knew we had 40 minutes to get flights. The BRCK was fired up, with in a minute we were online, and 4 of us rapidly trying to find the fasted route north. Its times like this that the utility of BRCK really shines!

Earlier in the day the BRCK became a lifesaver as well. On the road from Lusaka to Livingstone, a short 563km journey, the Land Rover developed a nasty fuel system problem with the fuel lines filling with air every 20km or so, stalling the truck mid drive. Stopping every 20km to bleed the fuel system makes for a LONG trip (14 hours I believe!). Out came the BRCK, and everyone who wasn’t driving was delving into Land Rover forums the world over trying to work out what the problem was, then trying twitter, facebook and instagram asking for help. Eventually diagnosing the problem as a faulty lift pump. Another quick Google search for a replacement lift pump in Livingstone and we were on the way again.

Trying to get help with a buggered 300TDi fuel system

Power issues again. 

We are an expedition company, and as such, our vehicles are kitted out more than most. We’ve got a 1500W 110V inverter wired in to the battery, 4 x 5A Cigarette jacks, and dual 12V batteries powering all the kit we have on the road. The biggest problem? Finding cables! Every time we have to charge a GoPro, power the Satellite internet or charge the motorbike headset, a mad scramble ensues trying to find the adapter, cable, or correct power BRCK. This is why we love the microUSB. As from Part I, we know its not perfect, but now we are torn. What should we use!

Knowing your limits

Getting the BRCK online in Tanzania and Zambia has been really easy, in fact, other than getting SIM’s and working out the crazy commands, the BRCK’s have been working flawlessly. One area that has popped up constantly is ‘how good is my signal now’. Driving from village to village the signal fluctuates quite a bit. We are working now to streamline the process of finding out how your BRCK is doing now.

Back in Nairobi we are working feverishly to take what the team and I have learnt to get some updates ready for the trip north on Saturday.

Working on new wireframes with information from the expedition south

We spend the afternoon at BongoHive today interacting with the tech community in Zambia.

Who was there?

We had product based start ups, some service based start ups, education based programs, some designers and developers. It was cool to meet these young entrepreneurs thinking of hardware

DEMONSTRATING THE BRCK

First Reg Orton and Phil Walton from the BRCK spent some time demonstrating and talking to the community about the BRCK. They spend a quality 45 mins with the community speaking not only of the genesis of the BRCK and why it was awesome, but some of the challenges of building hardware in Africa; from lack of quality human resource to manufacturing and customs challenges. They also spoke of lessons learnt from expeditions and putting the BRCK though tough situations. I for instance learnt the dust proof and secured lighting on the be BRCK was as result of the Turkana expedition which had sand storms, rain and other challenges thrown at the first version BRCK.

HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

I spent some time sharing some thoughts on Human Centered Designs and some examples of why this makes sense, especially in a resource-constrained environment. It was based on practical methods, pros and cons of each. It was particularly nice to have some of the startups come up to me later and say they have been inspired or learnt from the presentation and will be making efforts to talk to their users.

CREATING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

Erik Hersman has been around the block. He did a really open Q&A with the startups around building a business, securing investment and growing a business. One of the most insightful things that came out of the discussion is that there are people willing to invest in startups, but there far too few startups that are investment ready, speak the right business language and have prepared their business side of their tech. Another insight for me was the fact that having a great idea and a great team is not enough. He emphasized the value of a good network, which is often not well taken care of as people spend time building products and services.

It was quite interesting to me to observe the quality of individuals in the room. While the community is still nascent, the right people seem to be in the space. Hungry, motivated, willing to learn and that is quite refreshing to see. I think BongoHive is heading for big things.

STARTUP WEEKEND

It was the first time I saw Erik Hersman and Juliana Rotich share wisdom with startups about founding companies, building great team among other inspiring stories. While a lot of the startups had come to hear about product, capital and such, most of the talk was insights about people. Erik described people as the most important asset you will have. They also spent time on culture; the culture you build and defend should be unique to you and embody what your collective attitude is. Finally, the courage to do hard things. Doing hard things mean you have less people to compete with and more interesting things to do.

A great  day of sharing and learning happened at BongoHive and I’m grateful to have been there.

Along this trip, we are really putting the BRCK to the test. We are trying as hard as we can to dog-food this thing in the most extreme environments to see where it falls down and where it stands
up. Here is just a snippet of what we’ve learn’t so far. Some of it reinforces what we know and a lot of it, thankfully, is breaking down our preconceptions.

“Pickin’ up good vibrations”

We did a lot to make BRCK robust, we’ve used thicker than normal circuit boards, everything is tied down with multiple methods and in all directions. Hitting these washboards, thowing the BRCKs in
the truck and just plain misusing it has shown a few things. So far its done well, with all our BRCKs behaving flawlessly, other than one small thing. The microUSB cable keeps walking out! We know
we need to move away from this connector, but we really love it for so many reasons. Its one less cable to lose, one less to carry, and I have 20 spares at home.

450km of this. #brckexpedition

A photo posted by Reg (@regorton) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:30pm PST

Dust and Water (Fire and Ice?) 

Dust, its part of what defines Africa and part of what makes working in this continent so hard. The dust here is like nothing I’d seen before moving here, and something that is hard to comprehend.
If you look back in the blog, you may see our trip to Turkana. In this trip, we changed a lot about how V1 was made, specifically we moved the power button from the top to the side, and really
improved its weather sealing. Its these small changes that make a huge difference out here in the bundus. Driving from Arusha to Dodoma in Tanzania reinforced that thought. While the BRCK fared quite
well, it always astounds me where dust can get to.

We’ve often run on the theory that if you have a BRCK, you have a smartphone, laptop or some other high value equipment. Unfortunately this trip has shown that’s just not as valid as we hoped. The
BRCK is your often your only connection, your lifesaver, your redundancy. I have a laptop, a phone and iPad and many more, any one of these can get me online. I think the assumption is not true any more.

“Failure is not an option.”

But it will happen. We have to be realistic here. We are working in environments that are tough, dirty, messy and we must. As above, in order to make the device less complex we purposefully used
the thought pattern that ‘the BRCK will do the hard work for you’, but its frustrating to just wait in the dark. I want to know why it’s failing, and I want to help it get online now. We are activly working on improving the offline experience of the BRCK, like said before, its not going to be a traditional router experience, but conversational, something that gives you the information you need to know, but isn’t just for a networking expert to understand. With us on the trip is Mark Kamau, from the iHub UX lab, Mark is going to help us form a better mechanism for explaining why you damned BRCK isn’t working and how you can get it back online.

The Land Rover just 48 hrs before departure

“Right here, right now”

This trip has been taxing, and we are only half way though. Sometimes in these taxing times when you are tired, dehydrated and hungry the last thing I want to have do is fiddle with tech, all I
wnat to do is make sure things are working, send an email home and get to bed. Right now there are 2 speed hiccups with BRCK. Firstly boot time, the BRCK typically boots in less than 45 seconds,
but then latching a network takes time and if something goes wrong then trying to rectify that with antennas, APN settings, checking the charge level all take time. Also, just doing prechecks in
the morning takes time, there are many things to do. Check the oil, check the tyre pressure, GPS batteries, everything bolted down and . Right now, we are working on the offline functionality to
speed this up and give you more information right there. For V2 we are going to address this, additionally, we are investigating display options so that you can see the status of your BRCK even
when its off, getting you all the information you need instantly.